Can you help me pronounce Don Quixote?

[womenfly]

I'm just beginning my adventure with TWEM.

My first assignment: Don Quixote

My first fear: someone will ask me what I'm reading - and I won't know how to pronounce what I'm reading. good grief.

 

Please have mercy - and help me. :)

[cb in socal]

don is just Don.

Quixote is:

key ho tea

carol.

[dirty ethel rackham]

Don - long "o" (the Spanish don't use a short "o" sound)

Quixote - key HOE tay

[DollyM]

but in the last syllable of Quixote, the 'te' is pronounced more like something between 'long a' and 'short e' - sort of "eh." It's not really EE like in TEA.

 

I could be wrong, but that's what I think. ;o)

[Tammyla]

Don - long "o" (the Spanish don't use a short "o" sound)

Quixote - key HOE tay

 

I just had a flashback to 11th grade. LoL:lol:. This is how my high school teacher pronounced it.

[Sylvia in CA]

but in the last syllable of Quixote, the 'te' is pronounced more like something between 'long a' and 'short e' - sort of "eh." It's not really EE like in TEA.

 

I could be wrong, but that's what I think. ;o)

 

Yes, that's correct, DollyM

 

 

 

sylvia

[womenfly]

thank you, thank you, thank you.

 

... flashback to 11th grade, huh? wow. if I could remember back that far I'd really have it made! good for you. :)

[Alyce]

Here's what wikipedia had to say about the pronunciation. They even have a file you can download to hear it pronounced but my computer is not compatible with it.

 

 

 

 

 

is the original spelling in medieval Castilian, and is used in English. However, modern Spanish has since gone through spelling reforms and phonetic changes which have turned the x into j.

 

The x was pronounced like an English sh sound (voiceless postalveolar fricative) in medieval times — IPA: [kiˈʃote] — and this is reflected in the French name Don Quichotte, the Dutch Don Quichot (or Don Quichote), as well as in the Italian name Don Chisciotte. However, in Spanish such words (now virtually all spelled with a j) are now pronounced with a voiceless velar fricative sound like the Scottish or German ch (as in Loch, Bach) or the Greek Chi (χ) — [kiˈxote]. English speakers generally attempt something close to the modern Spanish pronunciation when saying Quixote/Quijote, as IPA: /dɒŋkiːˈhoʊte/, although the incorrect traditional English pronunciation /ˈkwɪksət/ or /ˈkwɪksoʊt/ is still frequently used, more in the United Kingdom than in the United States [23].

 

In Spanish, the "qu" in "qui" and "que" are pronounced almost identically to the English "k", so when people pronounce it /ˈkwɪksoʊt/, it is ultimately incorrect. The e at the end of "Quixote" is pronounced as a soft e, not a hard e, nor a silent e, due to Spanish phonetics. The traditional English rendering is also preserved in the pronunciation of the adjectival form quixotic.

 

 

 

 

Hope this helps

[Jean in Wisc]

Don't make it sound like Donkey Hoe-tee! That makes me cringe!! (I tell my kids he was NOT a Donkey! LOL)

 

Yes, like the others said: Don rhymes with bone. Key Hoe Tay (tay rhymes with hay). Acccent on the Hoe.

[kpupg]

Thread hijack: How do you pronounce the word "quixotic?"

[Cathy]

I must have learned it slamming through "sustained silent reading" time, or those zillion college books years ago, but I read The Od----y names all kinds of ways :thumbup:

 

but the most egregious one was "tele-MOCK-us"! :tongue_smilie:

 

Maybe it was all that Greek root study???:confused:

 

Course, I read aloud "that book" to the kids now like crazy--very expressive, great voices, rolling right along until--Telemachus comes up! :tongue_smilie:

Halt! Mom has to erase her brain :smash: and say...

 

Tell-LEM-a-chus!:hurray:

 

Cathy

[LisaNY]

Don't make it sound like Donkey Hoe-tee! That makes me cringe!! (I tell my kids he was NOT a Donkey! LOL)

 

Yes, like the others said: Don rhymes with bone. Key Hoe Tay (tay rhymes with hay). Acccent on the Hoe.

 

LOL!

[Pam "SFSOM" in TN]

Thread hijack: How do you pronounce the word "quixotic?"

 

kwik-ZAH-tik

 

I think. :glare: